


for the permanent

by insistentbass



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-10
Updated: 2012-08-10
Packaged: 2017-11-20 13:35:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/585929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/insistentbass/pseuds/insistentbass
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s just too much, now. Too much of everything and not enough of <i>nothing</i> - a clean slate, John wishes for, despite the thrum of betrayal in his arteries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	for the permanent

Some sort of bird twitters not far away, and John listens - a swallow, maybe, then a sigh of breeze, a plane flying high up and away, from both of them, carrying people with their own destinations; and John _forgets_ sometimes - that other lives exist, that there are other real, breathing, human beings outside of Sherlock and himself - it all seems very irrelevant.

But John is happy, today. They’re in a barley field in the middle of somewhere unimportant, and he has no idea why.  Ideas don’t matter now though, not when there’s warmth spreading from his belly right down to his toes, right into the enamel of his teeth. There’s no reason for this sudden onslaught of contentment, either - John finds it’s always best when there _isn’t_ reason, anyway.

It’s all very unexpected. Mostly because Sherlock came back from the dead eight days ago, and John still hasn’t quite forgiven him for that, yet. There’s anger growing and multiplying under his fingernails, but the steady ebb of evening quiet and the brush _swish_ of sun burnt corn against Sherlock’s trousers, keeps it very much at bay.

“Are you going to tell me why we’re here then?” John asks, though his attention falls instead on the shadow slicing Sherlock’s face in two.

“I expect so,” Sherlock squints his eyes against the light, hands shoved deep into his coat pockets, face set in some strange mismatched density that he’s been wearing for five out of the eight days.

They walk in silence a little longer, until they reach a gate; Sherlock slides in front and opens it, gestures with a small tip of his chin. John takes it, will greedily take anything he can get right now - and he is owed a lot more than gentle politeness - whispers passed Sherlock without so much as a look, shivers as wool coat brushes his bare arm.

About a mile of endless field stretches out before them, John guesses, and he wonders if there’s a case at all, if perhaps Sherlock just wanted a walk and couldn’t be bothered to explain himself. Regardless, John doesn’t much care. There’s so much air around them, clean and unlimited, combing fingers through his hair.

“Did you -“

John pauses, because maybe this isn’t the time to resume his ‘ _where the fuck were you for eighteen months_ ’ questioning, but then he has a feeling that out here -  open and wide - Sherlock has nowhere to run, might even tell the truth.

“Did you get lonely, then?”

Sherlock rolls his lips together and John watches, observes the tension filtering through from Sherlock’s mouth to the creases in his face, feels it all tumble over his own skin. Almost doesn’t realise for a moment that Sherlock’s stopped, and he’s walked the last few steps on his own. John turns to face him, fists clenched to his sides without quite meaning it; a stand-off in some low budget western, _who shoots first_.

“Did you” Sherlock fires.

Not fair, at all - John’s not sure if it’s a question or an acknowledgement, doesn’t really want to know either way. Of course he was lonely; he’s John, he’s the heart, he’s the one weathered and worn by eighteen months of wondering - just, _wondering._ Maybe now is the perfect time to hit Sherlock, Christ knows he’s been waiting for the right opportunity.

Instead though, John laughs, shakes his head and turns his eyes to the sky as if revelation will fall from the clouds and into his mouth.

“You can’t always answer a question with a question, we talked about that - remember?”

Emphasis on the _remember_ , and John waits with his tongue wet and shiny pressed flat against his bottom lip, for Sherlock to do just that. Doesn’t so much as blink, as the man shouts out in frustration, grabs fistfuls of black treacle hair and attempts to tug his own brain out, apparently.

“I was lonely, John,”

And John almost thinks - _yes, that’s it_ \- before Sherlock continues, mocking and devoid of anything at all.

“Empty, forgotten, hollow, a shell of a man - what _else_ do you want to hear?”

The sun is fading, reaching with hot hands to steal John’s happiness away. A mosquito buzzes to his left ear, but John cannot hear it, can’t feel the pinch of it biting the flesh at his elbow - because now, there’s only them again; he and Sherlock and no people up in planes, no nature flitting and living around them, only the two of them and the _cave_ of space between.

John just breathes through the tendrils of Sherlock’s outburst; isn’t sure if there’s anything he can do, if there’s anything left, if he’s even allowed to be the person that _takes_ it, anymore. It’s hopelessness; the same kind that gnawed away at him right up until eight days and five hours ago, the kind that almost chewed a hole straight through his head.

There’s just too much, now. Too much of everything and not enough of _nothing_ \- a clean slate, John wishes for, despite the thrum of betrayal in his arteries.

Sherlock looks at him like he always used to, and this time there’s a soft sadness dusting his eyelashes, a curve of brow that has no business belonging to someone so usually self-assured. Sherlock looks vulnerable, a tiny bit, more than John’s ever seen and more than he is likely to ever see again.

That, in itself, is something. Something John can’t quite understand, or place in context right this second, with his whole body aching and his mouth dry as ice.

“Tell me, John - I don’t,”

Sherlock takes a small step backwards, lets his arms drop to his sides, and somehow John feels closer, let in; with Sherlock’s palms turned up and to the sky, defeat and pure tiredness radiating from his body.

“I don’t do this, _this_ \- you have to tell me, what to say”

Although there’s always _some_ satisfaction to be had when Sherlock doesn’t know something, John doesn’t feel a degree of it. Overwhelming guilt, suddenly, curls around him, the urge to smooth Sherlock’s stray curls from his forehead and shush him, calm him, turn him around and take him back home. Lacing that is something new, foreign and surprising; but it seeps into John’s pores like snow, melts into his bare arms until he’s shivering again with the truth he’s been burying for eight days and nearly six hours - not something he needs, anymore, but something he actually _wants_.

“Sherlock,”

John breaks forwards, just two tiny steps, has to anchor himself down for fear of consuming the whole three metres between them.

“What _I_ would say, it’s not - it’s not what _you_ would say, and that’s all that matters”

More silence, and John thinks of the eighteen months. Thinks of the agony and the alone, thinks of all the things he didn’t do, that he couldn’t say to his therapist or even to himself. And now Sherlock is here, alive, has been for eight days and definitely six hours, yet John’s not confessed a word of it. Hasn’t even thought about it, actually; between wanting to scream and wanting to feel relieved.

Words are fickle - this notions blooms across John’s tinted cheeks and right onto Sherlock’s parted lips. _Sherlock_ who moves, forwards this time, steady and into the heady air swamping John; breathes like he means to go underwater, and looks down at him with such an intensity, such depth that John remembers why he _wants_ , so much.

“Tell me what to _do_ , then, can you do that John?”

Sherlock knuckles the very edges of John’s shoulders through his thin cotton shirt; John feels everything constrict and the landscape around them absorb into itself, all atoms still. Sherlock is definitely asking a question this time, and John’s not sure if he trusts himself to answer honestly, or if he’s capable of telling a lie.

“Yes”

He truths, the beginnings of relief bleeding from Sherlock’s pressed fingertips, right through John’s wrecked shoulder and into his cartilage. John shifts and pivots himself up, finds his nails digging into the small of Sherlock’s back, pressure; curving his spine like a flower reaching for sun. Teeth buzzing, John guides his own cheek to a clean jaw, feels his lazy stubble ignite Sherlock’s skin, mouths at his ear words for the now, for later, for the _permanent_ -

“Stay with me, Sherlock.”

                   
  


  


  



End file.
